Yet Another Project b4 the rest are finished…

My neighbor, who I looked after, let me have her china cabinet and a floor lamp before she passed away.  It probably had something to do with every time I sat at the kitchen table I mentioned how much I loooved her china cabinet…It’s nothing special, I just liked it.  She said it was a piece of junk she bought at a yard sale many years ago.  Its just so 70’s to me LOL.  When she went in the nursing home she badgered me about getting it out the house before she passed away but I can’t do things like that.  She passed away in January and I just got it last weekend.

She and I had this connected bond that no one seemed to understand.  I met her when I was considering buying my house. The first weekend I moved to NC the  kkk put flyers on people’s cars.  I could not believe stuff like that still went on in this day and age but yes people, I live in the south where there are still some backwards people. Hell if you look up Henderson, NC the kkk is listed in the phone book according to Wikipedia.  That is not too far from me.  I am scared of ignorant people and they are ignorant.   As I was searching for a house I heard hair raising stories about people who moved next to the wrong people and their neighborly wars so as I was looking for a house I always introduced myself to the neighbors and checked them out.  I wanted to make sure there were going to be no  issues.  When I went to her house I had a nice little conversation with her and she started telling me about the house and would always ask me to come back so she could tell me more. She and her husband lived alone and appreciated having someone one showing them attention.  She  liked to shock me or make me laugh but sometimes she aggravated me.  Like I will never forget one day she called me at work and asked me if I would go to the store for her to buy her some Honey Nut Cheerios when I got off.  She said we had a storm brewing and she wanted to make sure she had some in the house.   She said NO RUSH.    So I get off work and decided to get my nails done.  She was blowing up my phone from 5:30 till I got to her house about 8 that night asking me if I went to the store yet.  I would say Mrs W you said this was not an emergency so when I finish with my errands I will bring them over.  She say, I don’t mean to bother you honey and there is no rush I was just making sure you didn’t forget.  I assured her I did not forget.  10 minutes later she called me again.  LOL  this went one till I delivered her Honey Nuts Cheerios.  Then when I put them in her cabinet for her I see she had about 8 boxes already.  LOL OMG and when I pointed that out to her she said she had no idea how bad the storm would be.  I say well it wont be so bad that you have to stay in the house a year.  LOL.  Sometimes I would forget to turn off my kitchen light at night and she would call me on Saturday morning at like 5 AM and ask me if I was sleep.  I would say yes ma’am, this is my day off.  She would say oh, I saw your light on so I thought you were up cooking breakfast.  Then she would say I didn’t want anything, call me when you wake up.  Then she would call me back at 8, and I wouldn’t answer the phone.  I have youmail on my answering machine so it would say “Hi Louise please leave a message at the tone” and she would leave a message like :  “Hi, will you please tell Jaya that her neighbor Louise is wanting to speak to her.  Please don’t forget to tell her, but its not important”  Then she would tell me she left a message with that woman that answers my phone.  LOL.  I had to love her.  She kept me laughing.  Then we had conversations like I would say please don’t tell me anyone died in my house she said well they did. I would say I was fixing something in my house and she would tell me that there was some missing money hidden in my house and I need to search for it.  I say there was a snake in my yard she say you should have called me I would have come over there and chopped him up with my hoe.  Anything I said she had a remark to follow it.  I would laugh and laugh and sometimes she could not keep a straight face and she would crack herself up. She loved to make me laugh no matter how she had to do it.  She reminded me of my mom.  She had a sarcastic humor that not everyone can understand.  I did.

This is her and her husband back in the day

What you probably don’t know about me and why I stay to myself so much is that in 2009 my mother was brutally murdered by a teenager that she knew and treated like her own grandchild. She knew him from about 5 years of age till the age he killed her, which was about 18.  Everyone recognized him as trouble and warned her to stay away from him, but she never wanted to give up on him like everyone else did.  He broke in her house while she was home alone and well one thing led to another and he wound up killing her and doing horrible things to her that the police testified shocked even them.  Police officers broke down crying on the stand while testifying about the crime scene.  It was terrible.  The guy was  sentenced to death.

I had started cutting everyone out of my life and keeping to myself.  In a way I did not really want to stay so close to my neighbors either because I was afraid of losing them but she depended on me so much and I couldn’t turn my back on her because of what that creep did to my Moms.  So here we had it….she never had a daughter and I no longer had a mother.  When she and her husband went in the nursing home she did not trust anyone to care for her but me.  She thought I was the smartest, most trust worthy, loving person she ever met.  She sic’d me on people that mistreated her, including her own son.  I would do anything for her.  We filled each others voids.  I sat with her for MANY hours just talking and usually laughing.  She and her husband were married for 63 years and she gave me motherly advice on men, marriage, being a woman etc. I haven’t gotten a chance to practice her man advice yet.  LOL.  She always felt bad for me because she knew more than anyone how hurt and scarred I was about my Mom and I think she always went the extra mile to keep a smile on my face.

So now I have this china cabinet and I have embarked on yet another project, even though NONE of the others are finished.  I felt I need to start this because I need the storage. The major problem with this cabinet is that it was too tall for my house.  It was about 2″ too tall and there was nothing that I could think of to make it fit.  I decided to separate the pieces.

The first piece I brought in is the bottom piece.  I want to put it in this space in front of the window where the end table that I gave my niece was. I think plants on it will be NICE!

I will also be able to store linens or something in it.  I can always use more storage space…:-)

The cabinet had not been properly maintained for a while so it was kind of sticky and smelly.  I scrubbed it down with Calgon dish washing powder mixed in water.  It is a natural wood brightener that won’t harm the wood or raise the grain.  I painted it with a coat of my second new favorite color by Valspar called toasted Almond.

Now I can put the thing together and be done with it but noooooo I have to get all fancy about it.  I want to do something like this with it…

I know I know…this is not Moroccan, its more of a French influence.   I think it will still blend well.  Micheal’s sent me a 20% off my entire purchase coupon for my birthday (SEPTEMBER 14th, Mark your calendar!!) so I purchased a Martha Stewart Torino stencil

Then I went to Barnes and Noble and got a bird book.  I hate to cut out the photos but it is what it is,..

I will let you know how it turns out.  I also have to go to School Saturday for a study group to study for my math final so I am not sure if I will finish this weekend or not.  I will try though….I need to have this thing functioning so I can start putting stuff away!!